First Road Car Launched into Space

Car in Space

Mission accomplished!!! Eon Musk has completed his goal in launching his very own $100,000 Tesla Roadster a road going car into space. It is even complete with a dummy passenger (nicknamed Starman) with David Bowie's “Space Oddity” pumping out from its speakers. And to complete the Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy theme, we have the “Don’t Panic” message displayed on the dashboard.

We think Tesla has earned to come up with a tagline that no other manufacture can claim. E.g. "our vehicle airbags will protect you even in the case of getting hit by an asteroid" …… Can you come up with your own? Comment below.

The Story

Currently the rocket business involves of launching an expensive one time only rocket into space, for it to eventually come crash landing somewhere on Earth by parachute. Eon Musk’s goal was to solve this problem by introducing cheaper rockets, that could be reused and take on heavier payloads, hence the Tesla stunt which proved to be a big hit.

The first Falcon Heavy, the most powerful rocket in operation took test flight on the 6th February,2018 with a Tesla Roadster acting as ballast loaded into the payload bay of the rocket. The engine ignition on the rocket carrying the car worked a little too well, and it is going out farther out into the Solar System than originally planned and has put the Tesla in an orbit that extends out into the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The Tesla’s journey certainly demonstrates the Falcon Heavy’s capabilities of putting objects into deep space. Plus, some space companies, like Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries, are working on technologies to mine water from asteroids someday. They might be happy to know that the Falcon Heavy is capable of sending their spacecraft into the asteroid belt.

Could be they weren’t actually aiming for Mars and decided to burn longer to see how far out they could get it, but being able to hit a target accurately is something of a big deal with these things when you start talking about real payloads or passengers.

Either way, the plan worked and puts SpaceX far at the front of the commercial space race. Falcon’s success mimics a heavy-lift capability towards space that has not been seen since the 1960s. Two of the three boosters landed safely. The third, which SpaceX had predicted was less likely to be salvaged, slammed into the Atlantic at about 300mph (483 kph). All this at a cost of $90m, while Nasa’s planned SLS rocket (a comparable system) is expected to cost about $1bn per flight.